Treasury Department Says Bitcoin (BTC) Being Used As ‘Digital Gold,’ Touts Benefits of Tokenization

The U.S. Treasury Department is acknowledging the benefits of asset tokenization and comparing Bitcoin (BTC) to gold.

In a new report, the Treasury Department calls the top crypto by market cap a store-of-value asset boosted by speculators.

“The use case of digital assets continues to evolve, but interest has proceeded along two main tracks. Primary use case for Bitcoin seems to be a store of value also known as ‘digital gold’ in a decentralized finance (DeFi) world; speculative interest seems to have played a prominent role in the growth of digital tokens thus far.”

According to the Treasury Department, real-world asset tokenization – which allows investors to represent their physical assets with tokens – has the potential to change the financial landscape and disrupt trading in traditional markets.

“Tokenization has the potential to unlock the benefits of programmable, interoperable ledgers to a wider array of legacy financial assets… The benefits of tokenization extend far beyond and are independent of native crypto assets like Bitcoin as well as the public, permissionless blockchain technology those assets have popularized.”

The report also says some of the main benefits of tokenization include easy fractional ownership of digitized assets, streamlined composability of bundled assets and automated executions using smart contracts.

However, the agency notes that lawmakers will eventually have to create guidelines for tokenized assets.

“Legal and regulatory landscape will need to evolve alongside advances in tokenization of legacy assets.”

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